Long-term use of acid suppression started inappropriately during hospitalization.

BACKGROUND: Practitioners routinely misuse acid suppression medications on general medical floors and inappropriately continue the drug at discharge. AIMS: To: (i) retrospectively study the appropriateness of acid suppression use on the general medical floors; (ii) characterize the patient population discharged on unnecessary acid suppression and (iii) evaluate whether patients discharged on unnecessary acid suppression continue the medicine long term. METHODS: Retrospective chart review of general medical patients admitted to an in-patient teaching service over 6 consecutive months. RESULTS: About 60% of patients lacked an indication for initiation of acid suppression and 34% of these patients were discharged on the medicine. The only independent predictor of continuation of acid suppression at discharge was longer length of stay. Multivariate analysis did not identify a characteristic distinguishing those patients discharged inappropriately on acid suppression. At 3 and 6 months of follow-up, 80% and 50% of patients, respectively, remained on acid suppression therapy without an appropriate indication. CONCLUSIONS: Our data verifies that practitioners routinely start general medical in-patients on acid suppression without an appropriate indication. Many of these prescriptions are continued at discharge for no apparent reason, leading to their long-term misuse.

Preparation and reactions of stannylated amino acids.

Hydrostannations of propargylic glycine esters with the new hydrostannation catalyst [Mo(CO)3(CNtBu)3] (MoBI3) gave rise to alpha-stannylated allylic esters in good yield and with high regioselectivity. The chelate Claisen rearrangements of these esters allow the syntheses of gamma,delta-unsaturated amino acids with a vinylstannane moiety in the side chain. The amino acids obtained can be further modified by cross-coupling with various types of electrophiles.

Enhancement of transformation rates in higher plants by low-dose irradiation: Are DNA repair systems involved in the incorporation of exogenous DNA into the plant genome?

Irradiation (X-ray; 5-15 Gy) of protoplasts treated with plasmid-DNA and PEG yielded higher transformation rates in comparison to non-irradiated protoplasts transformed by the same method. This could be demonstrated for four plant species. The irradiation doses used did not affect the total number of colonies regenerated without selection pressure, but resulted in 3-6-fold enhancement of hygromycin- or kanamycin-resistant colonies. Plant regeneration frequencies of transformed colonies derived from irradiated and non-irradiated protoplasts were similar in tobacco as well as in Petunia. Higher integration rates of foreign DNA as a consequence of an increased recombination machinery in irradiated cells may be responsible for the enhancement of the number of stably transformed colonies.